Two former aides to Saddam Hussein have refused to testify against the ousted Iraqi leader at his trial in Baghdad. Former head of the presidential office Ahmed Khudayir and ex-intelligence chief Hassan al-Obeidi both said they had been brought against their will. During another stormy session, Saddam Hussein said he too was forced to attend and shouted "Down with Bush". The ex-leader and seven former aides are being tried in connection with the killing of 148 Shia villagers in 1982. The defendants deny all the charges. Mr Khudayir and Mr Obeidi are the first aides to Saddam Hussein to testify at the trial. The BBC's Jon Brain in Baghdad says the prosecution had been hoping they would confirm that the former president had ordered the massacre of the village of Dujail. Mr Khudayir headed Saddam Hussein's presidential office from 1995 to the fall of the regime. He attended a military planning session on 9 April 2003, two days before the Americans entered Baghdad... http://news.bbc.co.uk

The campaign contributor accidentally shot and wounded by Vice President Dick Cheney during a weekend quail hunt is "doing well" and will be released early this week, a spokesman at Christus Spohn Hospital in Corpus Christi, Texas, said Monday.Peter Banko told CNN that Harry Wittington, 78, took "quite a bit of spray" in the face, neck and upper torso but is recovering nicely after he was wounded Saturday afternoon on a vice presidential friend's south Texas ranch."He rested well last evening and is in stable condition in our trauma ICU," Banko said. "We'll know a little bit better later this morning, but he should be released within the next day or two. He's doing well."Whittington, an Austin attorney who gave $1,000 to President Bush's 2000 campaign and $2,000 to his 2004 re-election bid, was among a handful of people accompanying the vice president when the accident occurred Saturday afternoon. ...http://www.cnn.com/2006/POLITICS/02/13/cheney/index.html?section=cnn_us

A four-block area around the U.S. diplomatic mission in Havana has become ground zero for the two countries to vent pent-up hostility and grievances. The theatrical shouting match is pushing always contentious relations toward the breaking point. A crimson ticker runs through 25 windows on the fifth floor of the six-story building. The 5-foot-high ticker streams news, political statements, and messages blaming everyday problems such as transportation shortages on the country's communist politics and socialist economy. "Some go around in Mercedes, some in Ladas [a Russian car], but the system forces almost everyone to hitch rides," stated one message, playing on a common complaint that there are few buses and that Cubans need the government's permission to buy a new car. ''When people lose their fear totalitarian regimes lose power," another message stated. The United States insists it is merely promoting democracy and human rights. ...http://abcnews.go.com/International/story?id=1612026&page=1&CMP=OTC-RSSFeeds0312

President Gen. Pervez Musharraf stood by his alliance with the United States in the war on terrorism Monday and criticized Pakistanis for harboring al-Qaida in an area hit by a U.S. missile strike. He also urged President Bush, who is due to visit the subcontinent next month, to help nuclear rivals India and Pakistan settle their dispute over the divided Himalayan region of Kashmir, cause of two wars between them. "This can be resolved now, and the United States must contribute," the Pakistani military leader told visiting journalists from Asia and the U.S., including a reporter from The Associated Press. "President Bush is coming here. I hope he understands the reality." ...http://abcnews.go.com/International/wireStory?id=1613136

Top world cocoa producer Ivory Coast on Monday rejected charges by rights groups that child slaves help produce its cocoa and said Valentine's Day consumers could eat Ivorian chocolate with a clear conscience. The West African nation, racked by conflict and unrest since a brief 2002 civil war, has come under increasing scrutiny from human rights and consumer groups who are campaigning for boycotts of foodstuffs tainted by violence, abuse or dangerous chemicals.The Washington-based International Labor Rights Fund last week pressed its case in a U.S. court against international food companies it says share responsibility in the trafficking, torture and forced labor of children who cultivate and harvest cocoa in Ivory Coast....http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20060213/ts_nm/ivorycoast_chocolate_dc

The Bush administration's plan to recycle spent nuclear fuel could thwart recruitment efforts by terrorist groups in poor countries by providing impoverished nations with affordable electricity supplies that would improve their economies and the lives of their citizens, U.S. Energy Secretary Sam Bodman said on Monday. The administration has asked Congress for $250 million in the Energy Department's 2007 budget to develop technology for reprocessing the thousands of tons of spent nuclear fuel stored at U.S. nuclear power plants, which could be supplied to countries as fuel for their new power reactors that would generate electricity. Bodman said the administration's nuclear recycling plan could particularly help underdeveloped nations, which have "frequently served as safe havens for terrorists and other fanatics," such as the Taliban regime in Afghanistan and Osama bin Laden's initial home base in Sudan. ...http://abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory?id=1613146